Silas’s voice, though still softened by the lingering fog of his amnesia, held a disquieting edge. He rested on one elbow, his pale gaze fixed on Elara, a curious glint in their depths. The single lamp on the bedside table cast long, dancing shadows, distorting the familiar contours of the chamber into something spectral. “So,” he murmured, a faint smile playing on his lips, “I stole you away, then?” Elara’s breath hitched. She had painted him as a devoted husband, but a *gentle* one. Not a rakish kidnapper. He continued, unfazed by her silence. “Whispered some pretty lies into your ear, perhaps. Then brought you here to this bed. A scoundrel, wasn’t I?” He chuckled, a dry, unsettling sound. He seemed to relish this imagined history, piecing together fragments she had so carefully spun. A cold dread coiled in Elara’s gut. Her carefully constructed narrative felt suddenly fragile, poised to shatter. If she couldn’t conjure a convincing truth, and quickly, she would be the one trapped, perhaps within these very sheets. The thought of his hand, even in amnesia, reaching for her with possessive certainty, made her skin crawl. She felt a desperate urge to flee, to vanish into the desolate moors. Her spine stiffened. She would not allow that. “You are not a scoundrel, Silas,” she said, her voice a little too sharp. She forced herself to meet his unwavering stare. “We… we were never *physically* compatible.” The smile vanished from his face, replaced by a frown of genuine perplexity. His brow furrowed, a faint crease appearing between his eyes. “Not… good?” he asked, his tone oddly distant, as if the concept itself was foreign. “Our… intimacy?” Elara clarified, a tremor she fought to suppress running through her. “Indeed.” “Who?” he pressed, leaning closer, his gaze suddenly intense. “Who was ‘not good’?” Elara’s heart hammered against her ribs. Every instinct screamed at her to avert her eyes, to search for an escape, but she held his gaze, a desperate defiance warring with her fear. She had to sell this. It had to be utterly convincing. Before she could form a response, he spoke again, his voice softer, but no less probing. “Was it… both of us?” A dry, humourless laugh escaped him, then he covered his face with a hand, rubbing his temples. He lowered his hand, his eyes now holding a peculiar glint, less confused, more… knowing. “This,” he declared, his voice a low rumble, “is even more astonishing than my missing memories.” His flaxen irises, usually mild, seemed to deepen in the dim light, almost reddish. The amiable blankness that often veiled his face was gone. He looked less like a man without a past, and more like a man contemplating a profound, inconvenient truth. “So,” he murmured, pulling his hand away, his gaze returning to hers with unnerving focus. “You mean to say, we never… indulged in such acts, after the first time?” “Never,” Elara confirmed, her voice steadier now, finding its rhythm in the fabrication. “What was the difficulty, then? Precisely?” His voice, though still soft, carried a weight of determination that belied his amnesia. Elara felt a sudden, dizzying panic. Her answers were running thin. His questions were threading too intimately, too close to the raw edge of a truth she could not afford to reveal. But she was Elara Thorne, survivor of the moors. She would not be intimidated. “I…” she began, carefully choosing her words, “I do not believe we were… attuned. I felt nothing during the act itself. Indeed, I confess, I still do not comprehend what some women describe as… rapture.” Silas remained silent, his gaze unwavering, absorbing her words. Elara pressed on, reinforcing the new, chaste foundation of their invented marriage. “You often remarked upon my… low ardour, my disinterest in such physical expressions. It was, in fact, what you found endearing. You fell for me, you said, because I sought only love, true connection, not… carnal satisfaction. You called me your little ascetic.” “An ascetic?” he repeated, his voice barely a whisper, a flicker of disbelief crossing his face. He rubbed his temples again, as if trying to reconcile this image with some faint, forgotten impulse. “Me?” “Our bond was primarily platonic,” Elara affirmed, sealing the lie with a final, decisive stroke. “It suited us both, at the time.” Silas said nothing for a long moment, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. He was so still, so quiet, that Elara wondered if he had finally succumbed to sleep. Just as she considered subtly disentangling herself from the bed, his voice, low and reflective, broke the silence. “So you nursed me, and tended to me, though we were not… attuned.” He paused. “That requires considerable devotion, Elara.” Elara offered no reply. People offered care for myriad reasons, not solely for physical reward. Yet, his conclusion hung heavy in the air. “You love me a great deal, Elara Thorne,” he finally said, a short sigh escaping him. A fresh wave of discomfort washed over Elara. She had merely engineered another misunderstanding, but one that served her purpose. The deeper he believed it, the safer she would be. This was the only tether keeping him at arm’s length. “Sleep now, Silas,” Elara commanded, her voice firm. Every word exchanged risked a slip, a thread unravelling. “As you wish, Elara,” he responded, closing his eyes, turning away as if the conversation of his past had exhausted him. Elara clenched her hands beneath the rough blankets. She prayed to whatever ancient spirits lingered in the Veiled Moors. *Please, let this man fall into a deep, unending slumber. A coma would be a blessing. Weeks of silence. The physician spoke of a syndrome. Let it be true now, please.* Just as she thought his breathing had deepened into the steady rhythm of true sleep, a whisper sliced through the pre-dawn stillness. “But why was I not good? Was it the act itself, or my caresses that left you wanting? Or… was I so very green then, so unpractised?” Elara’s jaw tightened. She was losing her grip. “I… I cannot say for certain. I believe you did not enjoy it yourself, and… that you concluded very swiftly.” She cursed herself internally. It was a crude detail, but one that might cement the lie. He fell utterly silent at that, a short, sharp sigh escaping him. He muttered something inaudible, then finally, his breath evened out, truly settling into the deep, regular cadence of sleep. Elara tried to pry her hand from his, where it lay trapped beneath his arm, but his grip, even in unconsciousness, was surprisingly strong. The day’s relentless tension finally claimed her, and she drifted into a restless sleep, one pressing question unspoken: *Why did you murder the hen so cruelly?* A shrill scream tore from Elara’s throat the next morning. Silas, propped on an elbow, was already awake, his eyes, reddish in the early light, fixed on her. He had been observing her. “Good morning, Elara,” he said, his voice soft, almost surprised. *What in the name of the Devil’s own brambles?* The physician had spoken of ‘Sleeping Beauty Syndrome,’ of prolonged slumber! She had anticipated days of quiet, a reprieve. Yet here he was, stirring before her, greeting her as if yesterday’s intricate deception had been naught but a pleasant dream. His flaxen irises seemed to hold a greater depth than before, the morning sun catching a faint, unnerving redness.

A Bed of Thorns and Lies